He defies gravity and refuses to be unseated. Karajan's 1973 version [of "Also sprach Zarathustra"] is definitive in a way that few recordings are: a seamless meeting of minds between composer and conductor . . . The basic mood music is sombre, objectified, and an externalised beauty springs from Karajan's detachment. His obsession with detail -- making literal what many conductors approximate -- is clear from the first bar, where Strauss's low-end bass instruments are blended into a perfect sonic infusion, the bass drum roll somehow 'inside' the sustained tones of the other instruments. Karajan takes the introduction at a spacious and unhurried tempo and makes devastatingly creative use of Strauss's dynamics . . . The controlled resonant echo of the recorded acoustic fits the orchestral sound like a particularly elegantly tailored glove . . . Karajan's strings never swoon and don't decorate the air; during "Das Grablied" the rising first violins seemingly glide from out of the body of the orchestra, their softness cutting through the ensemble with considerable robustness . . . Karajan's control over the internal structural tempo relationships never falters. In terms of sheer conductor/composer empathy, this remains one of the most perfectly conceived and executed documents ever committed to disc.

. . . everything came right. The basic mood music is sombre, objectified, and an externalised beauty springs from Karajan's detachment. His obsession with detail -- making literal what many conductors approximate -- is clear from the first bar . . . The controlled resonant echo of the recorded acoustic fits the orchestral sound like a particularly elegantly tailored glove . . . Karajan's strings never swoon and don't decorate the air; during "Das Grablied" ("The song of the grave") the rising first violins seemingly glide from out of the body of the orchestra, their softness cutting through the ensemble with considerable robustness. When lead violinist Michel Schwalbé begins to waltz, Karajan indulges in atom-splitting rubato and unearths another mislaid detail: a little harmonic "glissando" from another solo violin helps Schwalbé fly. Karajan's control over the internal structural tempo relationships never falters. In terms of sheer conductor/composer empathy, this remains one of the most perfectly conceived and executed documents ever committed to disc.